Authors: Shivam Rai
Abstract: The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) is a reform of Indian education since independence, aimed at transforming higher education through multidisciplinary education, flexible access and exit, integration of research, and digital innovation. It is a plan to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education, currently about 2628 per cent (20182020) to 50 per cent by 2035, and to reform a huge system of over a thousand universities and approximately forty thousand colleges into a smaller number of better-resourced multidisciplinary institutions. The paper explores opportunities generated and the challenges faced in the early years of NEP 2020 based on a qualitative, multi-institutional study of four contrasting universities, the University of Delhi (DU), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, Azim Premji University (APU) Bengaluru, and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) New Delhi. As the analysis reveals, NEP 2020 creates actual opportunities in the areas of curricular diversification, undergraduate research, and individualised learning tracks, especially in the context in which the institutional resources, faculty readiness, and organisational culture are aligned with the vision of the policy. Meanwhile, the research reveals systemic tendencies of symbolic compliance in resource-restricted contexts where there is no substantive shift in teaching-learning practices as a result of formal programme restructuring. Lack of faculty training, disparate digital and physical infrastructure, and lack of mechanisms that support equity in connection to flexible exit options all become bottlenecks. The paper states that the transformative potential of NEP 2020 can only become a reality through systematic investment in faculty development, differentiated investment to disadvantaged institutions, more explicit implementation guidelines, and effective support systems that can ensure flexibility is empowering to all students. It finds that the policy is a valuable commitment to young people in India, although the implementation of such a promise is reliant on the resolution of fundamental structural and cultural limitations in the higher education system.
